Weekend Estimates: Young Women Power Death Day to Victory

October 15, 2017

Happy Death Day

This weekend will be another winner for horror movies, with Happy Death Day powering into first place with a projected $26.5 million, according to Universal’s Sunday morning numbers. That puts it miles ahead of Blade Runner 2049, which failed to broaden its audience this weekend, and is down 54% to $15.1 million, for $60.6 million in total.

The virtue of having a compelling female protagonist is borne out by Death Day’s audience breakdown: 54 female and 65 under the age of 25. Jessica Rothe, whose last role was a small part in La La Land, and has the lead in January release Forever My Girl, holds the film together, and is clearly a star on the rise. Word of mouth will be interesting for this one, with two weeks to go until Halloween. That’s a long time for a horror movie to hold on as a significant box office force, but this could be a film to do it.

Also posting respectable numbers this weekend is The Foreigner. The Jackie Chan/Pierce Brosnan action movie is another film that STX Entertainment is distributing without significant financial exposure (it’s a Chinese-United Kingdom co-production that’s going to pick up the majority of its earnings overseas). Its $12.8 million opening means the company will recoup its marketing costs from the theatrical run, and move into a profit when the film debuts on video.

Things look somewhat shakier for Marshall, which is opening with about $3 million, per Open Road’s projection. It is relying much more on domestic earnings, and looks like it won’t earn enough at the box office to take much of a bite out of its marketing costs, in spite of excellent reviews. Likewise, Professor Marston & the Wonder Women, which is doing even worse—$737,000 from 1,229 theaters on opening weekend is a disaster for Annapurna Pictures. Both films are getting terrific reviews from critics, but it will take a word-of-mouth miracle to save them at the box office.

Also posting a modest opening, given pre-release expectations, is Goodbye Christopher Robin, which is expected to make about $56,000 from nine locations. An average of $6,222 is decent enough, but much less than one would expect for a film that started out with Oscar aspirations.

There are a couple of brighter outcomes among limited releases. The Florida Project continues to power ahead, with $400,000 or so projected from 33 theaters by A24, and Human Flow, Ai Weiwei’s documentary for Amazon Studios, expected to bring in $47,000 from three theaters on its debut.

- Weekend estimates

- Happy Death Day Comparisons
- The Foreigner Comparisons
- Professor Marston and The Wonder Women Comparisons
- Marshall Comparisons
- Blade Runner 2049 Comparisons
- It Comparisons
- The Mountain Between Us Comparisons
- American Made Comparisons
- Kingsman: The Golden Circle Comparisons
- The Lego Ninjago Movie Comparisons
- My Little Pony: The Movie Comparisons

Filed under: Weekend Estimates, Blade Runner 2049, Marshall, Human Flow, Goodbye Christopher Robin, Happy Death Day, The Foreigner, Professor Marston & The Wonder Women, The Florida Project, Pierce Brosnan, Jackie Chan, Ai Weiwei, Jessica Rothe